


For Your Own Good

by Rinkafic



Series: John Loves Rodney [8]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:33:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinkafic/pseuds/Rinkafic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney is trying to do the right thing when John's job is in jeopardy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Your Own Good

The most emotionally difficult thing Rodney had ever done was to make the decision to end it with John. It wasn’t that he wanted to, it needed to happen. It was the best for everyone. Everything else he had tried had failed.

He came to the decision in the middle of the night while reading his email. John was out cold, sprawled across the bed in a tangle of sheets, satiated and exhausted from their love play. Rodney choked back a sob as he looked back over his shoulder at John. It had been Love play from the start for Rodney. He had fallen hard and fast for the dark haired officer, and damn the regulations, he had given in to baser urges and hit on him. He was shocked when Sheppard went along with it. He’d taken whatever Sheppard had been willing to give, never pushing for more, afraid to push Sheppard away.

Rodney looked at the message in front of him one last time. It was the third one. He had to act now, he had to be the one to do this, for John’s own good. But damn if he wasn’t going to have this last night. Returning to the bed, he stripped off his t-shirt and shorts and shoved at John to get him to make room on the bed for him. Rodney had been at the computer long enough for John to spread out and take over the bed.

He dug his fingers into John’s hair, rubbing his scalp lightly. John purred and moved closer to him, pressing against him, warm and sleeping and loose. The room was never completely dark, there was too much ambient light from the city for that. He could make out the freckles on John’s back, and he lightly traced a scar, memorizing it, committing it to his memory for later, when John was too angry to speak with him again. He stroked a hand over a slim hip and the roundness of one cheek, left bare when the sheets had gotten twisted up.

“Are you going to fuck me or are you just gonna keep petting me like a cat?” John’s voice was husky with sleep.

Rodney chuckled. “You are very much like a cat.” John accepted affection on his own terms, very much like Rodney’s cat used to. “Are you up to it?”

“Sure, you’re doing most of the work.” John yawned and stretched and kicked at the sheets and blankets to get free of them. “How do you want me?”

‘Always,’ Rodney replied in his mind, but he couldn’t have what he wanted, not if he wanted John alive and well. “Shoulders down, tush up.” Sheppard shifted up onto his knees and moved up the bed a little to give Rodney room. He dropped his forehead onto his crossed arms.

“Damn, you’re so hot like this,” McKay said breathily, stroking a hand over John’s back, hip and ass. He had grabbed the lube and a condom from the nightstand and dropped them on the bed. He wasn’t ready to have this end yet, he wanted to touch and look at John for a while longer. He reached around and stroked John, lightly cupping his balls and massaging. John pressed into his hand, sighing happily.

“More. C’mon Rodney.”

Despite his wishes to the contrary, he was past ready. He slicked the condom on and lubed both of them with a practiced hand. Grasping John’s waist tightly, he pressed in. The responsive sound John made was ingrained in his mind, would always be part and parcel of the memory of this night. When he was done, the lingering cry Rodney let out at the end wasn’t entirely one of satisfaction.

Usually, Rodney cleaned up, put on his t-shirt and boxers and went to the computer to burn off the sexual energy that had him too buzzed to sleep. Rarely, he would bed down with John and sleep for a few hours. Tonight, he got back into the bed naked and was waiting when John came back from the bathroom and flopped onto the bed. Rodney stroked a hand over John’s cheek and leaned over to kiss him softly as he fell back to sleep.

Rodney watched him until the sun rose and the alarm went off on Sheppard’s watch, in the usual place on the nightstand where John always put it and his radio.

It was over. Sheppard would leave now.

Grumbling sleepily, John reached over him to grab the watch and stop the buzzing. Unable to help himself, Rodney threw his arms around as much of John as he could and hugged him tightly, inhaling the scent of his hair and aftershave. How could he go back to not having this? 

~*~

 

Tolerating the clinging for a minute longer than he might ordinarily have done because he had not gotten quite enough sleep, John eventually wriggled out of Rodney’s arms.

Rodney had been acting weirder and weirder the past few weeks. They’d gone three rounds last night, a rarity, even when this thing between them had been new and they couldn’t get enough of each other. Now the hugging? Not Rodney.

He looked at McKay, and noticed the dark circles under his eyes. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Enough,” Rodney lied. John always knew when he was lying, his tells were so obvious.

“Liar.”

Rodney shrugged at the accusation.

“What’s going on, Rodney?” John picked up his uniform trousers and yanked them on. His shirt was somewhere on the other side of the bed. He went into Rodney’s drawer and borrowed a pair of clean socks and t-shirt. He looked over at Rodney expectantly as he sat on the chair by the desk and put on the socks and his boots. “Rodney?” he prompted when he got no response.

“Look, John, I think we need to cool it.”

That was not what he expected at all. He dropped his boot and stared until Rodney began to squirm and wouldn’t meet his eye. Got him. He was lying. Okay, so why? There was always a reason for whatever McKay did, just not always the obvious one. His mind worked differently, and he expressed his emotions in ways no one else did. Last night he was clingy and overly attentive. He had obviously been planning this morning’s ambush. That had not been ‘I hate you’ sex, that had been ‘goodbye’ sex, now that John thought about it. Crap.

“You don’t want to be together?” John waved a finger between them.

“We can’t do this anymore.” The phrasing was important. When Rodney wanted something, he was very clear about it. He had some other motive for doing this and doing it now. John had to handle this right, or Rodney would clam up and this could get ugly, McKay did not react well when his plans went awry or were thwarted.

John walked around the bed and found his uniform shirt. He yanked the t-shirt over his head and draped the uniform shirt over his shoulder. Ordinarily, he might be royally pissed at getting the heave ho the morning after, but something was up with Rodney. He was more perplexed than anything.

“Fine,” he feigned a little heat. “See ya around, Rodney.”

He stomped to the door. Because he was listening for it, he heard the quiet, “Bye John,” followed by a soft sob. He almost turned back to demand answers, but he needed to give this time and thought.

Rodney avoided him for the rest of the day, he skipped two meetings, much to Elizabeth’s annoyance. After the second meeting, John went over to Zelenka and tugged his sleeve to get his attention. “Got a minute, Radek?”

“Certainly.”

John pulled himself up onto the conference table beside the scientist. “Can you hack into someone’s email?”

“I could do so, but would not. Unless it is security matter?”

“It might very well be. yeah, I think it is, actually.” Rodney had been spending more time staring at his laptop, not actually typing at night. It was odd. John would try grabbing Rodney’s laptop, but first he figured he’d check to see who was messaging him and if anything looked out of place.

Radek nodded and pulled up the mainframe on his laptop. “What is email address?”

“R McKay at SGC dot gov.”

“Rodney? You want me to hack... this will cost you, Colonel. Will take extra work to cover my tracks.”

John crossed his arms. “I’ve got stuff coming next shipment from Earth, you get first dibs. Just get me into his mailbox, Radek.”

It took longer than John would have expected, and he learned several new cuss words in Czech but Radek eventually smiled and passed him the laptop.

Scanning down the list of emails from the past two weeks, John recognized almost all of the IDs as personnel in the city. It made sense, they had not had a data burst in three weeks. One stood out, an ID made up of numbers and letters that made no sense. “Radek, who is 7Y7M74DY?”

“I do not know.”

There were three emails in Rodney’s inbox from that mysterious ID. They must be important, or Rodney would have deleted them by now. John’s finger hovered over the mousepad. Should he do this? It was a complete invasion of privacy. He remembered the look in Rodney’s eyes that morning, the helplessness he had seen there, and that decided him. He opened the oldest one first.

As he read, the anger he had not felt this morning came washing over him, but not towards McKay. Someone in his city was sick enough to send a message like this to Rodney. He opened the second one and saw that his name was included. By the time he opened the third one, he had a pretty good idea of why Rodney was doing what he was doing.

“Radek, do you have a flash drive I can borrow?” Radek dug into his labcoat pocket and produced one. John copied each of the emails to a document and saved it to the flash drive. Then he handed the laptop back to Radek. “Please delete that document so Rodney doesn’t see it.” He knew Radek could make it go away forever, and he wasn’t ready to let Rodney know what he was doing until he had it figured out.

“Something is bothering Rodney for past few weeks, you will see to it, no?”

“I intend to,” John slipped the drive into his pocket and went to find Kate Heightmeyer.

“So, anyone you know fit the profile of someone that would do this?” John asked as Kate read through the emails John had shown her. She knew about his relationship with Rodney, he had inadvertently outed himself during a session. He trusted her.

She tapped her lip thoughtfully with her pen. She was quaint like that, she used a pen and notebook. “There are a few. It saddens me to think that I haven’t made enough of an impact to help, if one of the people I suspect could be responsible turns out to actually be responsible.” Tearing a page out of her notebook, she wrote out a list of seven names and handed it across the desk to John. He glanced at it and then folded it up and put it in his pocket. Please investigate this as quietly as you can John. Some of these people have been very broken by their time here and exposure to the Wraith. I believe I’m making progress with most of them.

“Of course. Thanks Kate.”

“Don’t let this come between you, John. I think Rodney needs you as much as you need him. But you didn’t hear that from me.” She feigned zipping her lips closed.

He returned to his office and pulled up the files on the people Kate had pointed him towards. Nothing stood out about any of them, at least until he was reading through one of their relatively new scientist’s file. It was the date that jumped out at him: July 7, 1974. Doctor Rachelle Paul’s mother had been murdered on July 7th 1974, the killer had never been caught. 7, 7, 74. Y for Why? M for Mom? DY for die? It was too much of a coincidence under the circumstances.

“Kate?” John tapped his radio.

“Yes John?”

“Has RP from your list been out of sorts lately?”

There was a heavy sigh. “Missed the last few appointments. I had hoped I was making progress there.”

“Meet me at the chemistry lab, I want to bring her in for questioning, I think you should be there when we pick her up, just in case.”

He also gathered up Lorne and Lorned called in a pair of armed SFs to meet them there. Doctor Paul had merely smiled at them when they turned up in her lab. She refused to speak to any of them. A quick radio call to Radek and a few minutes later, it was confirmed that Doctor Paul had sent the emails.

“It doesn’t matter,” she hissed at John as Lorne took her by the arm and started walking her to the door. She looked at Lorne and the others and said, “You know your boss is sleeping with McKay. They’re fucking like bunnies. He’s McKay slut. He takes...”

Lorne shook her by the arm and glared at her. “If you say one more word, Doctor, I will hit you hard enough to knock you out. Understand?”

Surprised at the vehemence with which Lorne threatened the woman, John hid his smirk at Doctor Paul’s sudden change in demeanor. She nodded meekly and stopped struggling against Lorne. More importantly, she shut her mouth.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Lorne said, “Bunnies, sir? At your age?”

John wiped a hand over his face and shook his head. He realized that the SFs Lorne had grabbed were Markham and Stackhouse and he breathed a sigh of relief. Lorne would keep Doctor Paul in line; his secret was safe with the people in this room. None of the other three men would say anything about the infraction of the regulations they were all guilty of.

“Thanks,” he said to Kate and the others.

He went to the mess hall and got a tray of food, piling it high when he saw that McKay wasn’t here. He was probably avoiding John and having power bars for dinner. He took the tray with him and went to Rodney’s quarters. He rang the chimes three times before Rodney finally opened the door. He looked terrible, he was mussed and rumples and miserable. And adorable, he’d done this to protect John.

“Dinner.” John announced and sidled past him, carrying the tray over both of their heads.

“John? What are you...? No, you’re not supposed to be here,” Rodney protested as he followed John into the room and over to the table in the corner.

Throwing himself in a chair, John started separating out their meals. “Chicken and pasta.” He patted the top of the covered plate. “You like this one.”

Plopping down into the chair across from John, Rodney looked completely bewildered. “We broke up.”

“You broke up, I didn’t.”

“I thought it was understood?”

“Oh, I understood, I just did not accept it. Eat your dinner Rodney. Your hands are shaking, did you skip lunch?”

“No. Out. We are not seeing each other any more!” Rodney pointed towards the door. John took a bite of his roll after dipping it in some sauce. “Broken up means we do not see each other anymore.” His hunger got the better of him and he pulled his plate over and began to eat, glaring at John with every bite he took.

John waited to bring up the subject of Doctor Paul until they were both done eating, Rodney was playing with his food, pushing the remnants around on the plate, he was finished. “You won’t be getting any more emails.”

Dropping his fork, Rodney sputtered for a moment, too surprised to feign ignorance at first. “What emails?”

“The vile and disgusting ones you were getting that threatened your life and my life if you didn’t stop seeing me.”

“How did you find out?”

John smiled at him. “I know you well enough to know when something is wrong, buddy. Why didn’t you come to me? It was a security problem.”

“I thought I could figure it out. I tried tracing the emails, but I couldn’t find the origin. I thought if I did as he asked, it would keep him from doing what he said he’d do to you. I thought I might even have time enough to figure it all out.”

“She. Doctor Paul from Chemistry. The last I saw of her, Lorne was dragging her down to the holding cells. Kate is going to try counseling her, but I think Doctor Paul is taking the big ride back on the Daedalus on the next run.”

Rodney’s hands were shaking and he dropped them into his lap to hide them. “You’re sure, this is over?”

“Yeah. It took a little soft science and police work, but we found her. She’s a very broken woman, Rodney.” He didn’t tell Rodney that Kate had begun to suspect that Paul had been involved in the death of her mother. Rodney was upset enough.

“Why did she do this, why us?”

John shrugged. “She hates gay people. Doctor Paul has a big problem with authority. And she’s fucking bonkers, Rodney, isn’t that reason enough?”

“So, we’re not broken up?”

“Nope, not unless you’re sick of me.” John smiled and waggled his eyebrows and tossed his head towards the sofa. “Wanna go have make-up sex?”

Rodney stood up and grabbed John’s arm, dragging him out of the chair and across the room. “Of course I do. You owe me big time for letting me think we’ve been broken up all day!”

“I’ll do my best, McKay. I missed you too.”

 

The End


End file.
